Will Ubuntu manage to raise $32 million for the Edge smartphone? *UPDATE*

You may’ve heard that Canonical has turned to crowd-funding to get the cash needed to put its phone into production. In an Indiegogo campaign, the company is looking to raise no less than $32 million to bring convergence to life, and finally allow us to have just one device for all our needs.

There are two problems with this idea:

Canonical is looking to break all previous records by raising $32 million.

At $830, the device itself is kinda expense, especially for folks used to getting their mobile devices subsidized.

UPDATE: The price of the Ubuntu Edge has dropped to $725.

Don’t get me wrong. I would love to try out the Ubuntu Edge more than anyone else, but at the same time I’m kinda skeptical. As I’m writing this, the campaign didn’t cross the $4 million mark leaving some $28 million to go. The bold goal comes with great risks and more than anything I would like to see one big handset maker chipping in and paying the rest to turn the Edge into a real product.

That said, I really don’t understand some handset makers for not wanting to experiment with the Ubuntu Edge. It’s not like the platform is coming from an unknown company or something. And I do understand the argument that mobile operators won’t like such smartphone, but still… In the world dominated by Samsung and Apple, it seems foolish not to “shop around” and try out new things. Perhaps Canonical hasn’t knocked at the right doors. If I were working at ZTE, Huawei, Lenovo, Sony, HTC, TCL (Alcatel) and many other OEMs – I would be crazy to miss out on the opportunity to lead the convergence revolution…

Anyway, the point of this article is to support the efforts Canonical is making so if you can afford to get the Edge early on, please do it. We want these guys to kill it. 😉